Decline of the West???

How should society be organised, if at all?

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Maia
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Maia »

daniel j lavender wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 4:31 pm
Maia wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:18 pmTen thousand years ago we were scratching around in caves.
Actually we were nomadic and living on the plains as well.

Besides, we’re still scratching around in caves. These are your dimly-lit school buildings, your tedious, boring offices, your cramped cubicles.

Maia wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:18 pmFive thousand years ago we had to work all hours of the day and night to squeeze a living out of the land.
Huge misconception.

Hunter-gatherers actually worked less and enjoyed more leisure time than what you may consider modern-day agriculturalists.

Farmers have less leisure time than hunter-gatherers, study suggests https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/far ... y-suggests

Marshall Sahlins estimated (1972), based on a number of reports like Richard Lee’s study of the !Kung, James Woodbury’s observations of the Hadza, and many others, that extant hunter-gatherers typically work an average of 3-5 hours per day https://www.rewild.com/in-depth/leisure.html

Like most you are buying into the sales pitch brought to you by civilization.

The hunter-gatherer lifestyle was the most sustainable lifestyle possible. It is how humans naturally developed to live. The modern fairy-tale lifestyle goes against almost everything natural. Look at all the obesity. All the depression, anxiety, and all the manufactured drugs sold to remedy those issues. All of these issues are manufactured. Both problems and solutions.

Maia wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:18 pmA thousand years ago we were still dying of hideous diseases.
Coronavirus, anyone?

And now humans, some of them anyway, have the ability to implement tyrannical parameters of control whenever some bug hits. Remember all the restrictions and frenzy during Corona? All the lost wages, closed businesses? Did that not dramatically affect the livelihood of many?

So we are still dealing with natural diseases on top of man-made laboratory threats such as anthrax in addition to the draconian implementations imposed whenever one of these bugs pops up. Better? Progress?

Maia wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:18 pmA hundred years ago people still starved in the middle of the most advanced countries on earth.
Still happening and will continue to happen. Look at all the homeless in America alone. California alone.

You call this “progress”? Progress of what? What’s really progressing is technology and parameters of control. Human interaction, human kindness is not. The emphasis is placed on the paycheck, the advancement of business and the advancement of technology. This is why technology progresses but humankind and its daily interaction seemingly does not.

The society we have created, the progress we have achieved centers on flimsy, selfish convenience. We want things quick and easy. We want things consistent. We want things for what we can use them for.

Technology has spoiled us. Tech delivers things quickly, cleanly and consistently. Robotically. Now humans expect other humans to behave accordingly. Robotically. No emotion. No question. No friction. Give me the hot fries now. We are replacing ourselves, we are transforming ourselves into robots for quick convenience. Transhumanism.

No need for deadly guns or missiles. Technology, transhumanism, roboticism will be the death of us all.

Progress. Better.
You certainly don't have to try and convince me of the virtues of a simpler, more natural, lifestyle. There's nothing I like better than going off by myself, into nature, and just being part of it all. But the thing is, this is a luxury that most of our ancestors would not have found possible. Most were tied to the land, or stuck in squalid, cramped cities, often living in their own filth. Only the rich or very lucky would have had the freedom to do that sort of thing.

But yes, I agree that modern society leaves a lot to be desired. We can't go back, though. We can only go forward.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Iwannaplato »

Wizard22 wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 10:13 am Some claim that the West is in decline, or stagnant at best.
So, let's say we were on the ascent. What would our days be like? What are the very elevated people like?

What's the difference in leisure time activities?
What's work like?

What is art like?
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Maia wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:18 pmTen thousand years ago we were scratching around in caves. Five thousand years ago we had to work all hours of the day and night to squeeze a living out of the land. A thousand years ago we were still dying of hideous diseases. A hundred years ago people still starved in the middle of the most advanced countries on earth.
I have to agree with pro meat hen on this point.

It's not about Standard-of-Living, if the vast majority of humanity cannot attain a decent quality of life. It doesn't matter how rich, wealthy, or healthy the control group are, while people are oppressed and locked-out of any feasible type of class mobility. Because all your argument means then, is that severe oppression of an underclass are required to sustain the parasitism of an over-lording class, along with the middle class.

In the US, there is a massive shift of money to the ultra-rich, and a massive decline in the middle to low class. This, along with most other visible signs, demonstrate a "decline of the West". As such, signs are especially vivid in culture, movies, television, music, politics, morality, attitude, ideology, and especially idealism. When times are 'Good', people are very optimistic with strong views of actual progress, versus time are bad with weak views and false or deluded progress. So the ideal of 'progress' is flawed.

Surely the tip-top, ultra wealthy and rich, have a more consistent and constant 'progression' throughout human history. But this does not speak to the 99% of humanity.


When the rich are 'tied' to the progress of the middle and poor, then this tends to create the "lift all boats" effect. When they are untied, then the middle and bottom can bottom-out completely.

This is the difference of whether a society is socially-bound, tightly, glued, "together", versus antagonistic, hostile, "fragmented and fracture" as they say.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Skepdick wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:24 pmLook at the past.
Look at the present.

Things like equality, education, poverty, luxuries, war, human rights, life expectancy, access to things you take for granted (energy, water, sanitation, medicine, internet, travel).
Look at any given dimension of your day to day existence (you are welcome to browse the various topics on https://ourworldindata.org/ )

Convince yourself of any trends in any particular direction and then answer this simple question. If you had a time machine - would you prefer to live 2000 years in the past, the present; or 2000 years in the future?

The future is (generally speaking) better than the past, and there's nothing I want less than to live in "the good old days".

That's progress.
I have seen both great incline and great decline in my one lifetime. These things come and go.

I can use home ownership in the United States between the Boomer and Zoomer generation as an example of this.

It is increasingly difficult for average US Citizens to afford a home, a one-salary family, a middle class lifetystle...perhaps now impossible for the majority. Meanwhile the Boomer generation holds onto their wealth, which may or may not be inherited by Generation-X and Y-Millennials.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 3:06 pmSo we have confirmed that you are doing another antisemitism here.
Your juvenile tactics don't work on me, or anybody else here, my small-hat friend. If my family were Anti-semitic then my grandfather and the rest of the Anglos would not have saved your kin from the Nazi death camps, and imported you to the West. But we did. And you made the West wealthy for awhile...until you forgot where you came from, and why you are here.

Now your true nature is exposed. It doesn't take many generations for you to turn on your saviors, does it?

So I will hear no more about your prudish, empty rhetoric.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Sculptor wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 4:35 pmThe trouble with this sort of question is that there is no such thing as "The West".
Furthermore, no criteria for judging decline has been offered.
And yet look at the discussion thus far? It's been informative.

What say you, incline, plateau, or decline?
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

iambiguous wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 4:46 pmWhy? Because personally they don't like what they see around them.
I think we shall receive more 'objective' answers here on a philosophy forum, than any other.

I certainly don't expect a bunch of stogy scientists or religious fundamentalists to prove more than rhetorical fallacies.

At least philosophers can make better arguments, "beyond subjectivity" so-to-speak.


iambiguous wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 4:46 pmWhat should the world revolve around instead spiritually, morally, politically, philosophically...?

Go ahead, ask them.

Hope that helped.
I did ask...them, and you.

It has helped. Because so far I've seen no arguments for "WE'RE RISING TO THE TOP AND NOBODY WILL STOP US!!!" responses.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Iwannaplato wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 4:52 pmSo, let's say we were on the ascent. What would our days be like? What are the very elevated people like?

What's the difference in leisure time activities?
What's work like?

What is art like?
I think most people would point to the very rich and wealthy for evidence of this type of 'progress'.

Me personally? I don't think that way. I think in terms of how average people treat each other, optimism for the future, spirituality, philosophy. For example, if the quality of philosophy increases, then that's significant to me.
Skepdick
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Skepdick »

Wizard22 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:11 am
Skepdick wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 1:24 pmLook at the past.
Look at the present.

Things like equality, education, poverty, luxuries, war, human rights, life expectancy, access to things you take for granted (energy, water, sanitation, medicine, internet, travel).
Look at any given dimension of your day to day existence (you are welcome to browse the various topics on https://ourworldindata.org/ )

Convince yourself of any trends in any particular direction and then answer this simple question. If you had a time machine - would you prefer to live 2000 years in the past, the present; or 2000 years in the future?

The future is (generally speaking) better than the past, and there's nothing I want less than to live in "the good old days".

That's progress.
I have seen both great incline and great decline in my one lifetime. These things come and go.
Yes. You can find example of both. Which is why I am pointing at the general trend, not individual instances.
Wizard22 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:11 am I can use home ownership in the United States between the Boomer and Zoomer generation as an example of this.
Yes, I know you can cherry-pick the data.

Which is why I am talking about the overall trend.
Across all countries.
Over all history.
Wizard22 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:11 am It is increasingly difficult for average US Citizens to afford a home, a one-salary family, a middle class lifetystle...perhaps now impossible for the majority. Meanwhile the Boomer generation holds onto their wealth, which may or may not be inherited by Generation-X and Y-Millennials.
And this particular and localised example doesn't overrule the global trend.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:26 amAnd this particular and localised example doesn't overrule the global trend.
Read my response to Maia on behalf of promethean.

Why use standard-of-living as basis of 'progress' versus class mobility of the poor and middle, toward the wealthy?

Why should only the rich remain 'consistent' in such "progress"? If it were, in fact, progress?
Skepdick
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Skepdick »

Wizard22 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:28 am
Skepdick wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:26 amAnd this particular and localised example doesn't overrule the global trend.
Read my response to Maia on behalf of promethean.

Why use standard-of-living as basis of 'progress' versus class mobility of the poor and middle, toward the wealthy?

Why should only the rich remain 'consistent' in such "progress"? If it were, in fact, progress?
Because I'd rather be middle class in 2023AD than a king in 2023BC.

I have access to things that even kings didn't.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:31 amBecause I'd rather be middle class in 2023AD than a king in 2023BC.

I have access to things that even kings didn't.
Kings also need to have people killed and constantly wage war to maintain their class position.

Does the middle class need to do the same?
Skepdick
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Skepdick »

Wizard22 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:33 am
Skepdick wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:31 amBecause I'd rather be middle class in 2023AD than a king in 2023BC.

I have access to things that even kings didn't.
Kings also need to have people killed and constantly wage war to maintain their class position.

Does the middle class need to do the same?
OK, so the word "king" seems to have derailed you from understanding the point. How about...

I'd rather be middle class in 2023AD than super rich in 2023BC.
Last edited by Skepdick on Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
Maia
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Maia »

Wizard22 wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:33 am
Skepdick wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:31 amBecause I'd rather be middle class in 2023AD than a king in 2023BC.

I have access to things that even kings didn't.
Kings also need to have people killed and constantly wage war to maintain their class position.

Does the middle class need to do the same?
Successful kings don't need to do that. It's much better, and much more effective, too, to gain the love and respect of one's people.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:34 amOK, so the word "king" seems to have derailed you from understanding the point. How about...

I'd rather be middle class in 2023AD than super rich in 2023BC.
...so you need to skew 4000 years to make your point.

I understand what you're saying. But it's not the whole picture.
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